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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27581333">Just Below the Threshold of Hearing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyse_Leroy/pseuds/Oyse_Leroy'>Oyse_Leroy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Supernatural Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:09:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,030</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27581333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyse_Leroy/pseuds/Oyse_Leroy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>An elite ex-soldier overhears a woman in distress, through the vents faintly in his apartment building, and he sets out to locate the woman and be of assistance.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Just Below the Threshold of Hearing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brett slept on the carpeted floor of his unfurnished apartment. The firmness was familiar to him, courtesy of two tours in Afghanistan; actually a carpeted floor was more comfortable than the ground. He wasn’t prepared to make his residency in the apartment, and more broadly, in the neighborhood, official by purchasing stuff. It was a psychological thing, of which he was aware. Not only was Brett not a fan of where he was living, but he had become accustomed to a kind of rootless existence, which allowed him to relocate quickly.</p>
<p>This particular morning, the faintest sound woke him in his bedroom’s pre-dawn darkness. Brett opened his eyes to the red digital clock numbers, glowing 4:49 AM. His head lay near the vent, which was at floor level, and he thought he detected the faintest trace of what sounded like…female gasping…desperation, mixed with a strange wailing. But the sound registered so close to the threshold of his hearing that he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining it, or simply interpreting another environmental sound in a way that spoke to his own psyche. An aural Rorschach test at five in the morning, he thought to himself. </p>
<p>Brett sat up in the darkness and placed his ear close to the vent. He was pretty sure he could still hear it. If he were correct, was the woman having sex, or in trouble? The line between those two states could blur very easily, depending on the participants. If Brett was indeed hearing a woman and she was having sex, then there was a hint of distress there, and that spiked his adrenaline. Would he be interpreting her sound this way if he lived in a different neighborhood, where presumed drug dealers didn’t loiter in front of his building, and mentally ill homeless people didn’t curse themselves out in public? </p>
<p>It was definitely a woman’s voice. Brett was sure of it now. And he was better than 90% sure that he had just heard her scream, “Get off me!” which made his stomach jump. Brett got up and cut the light on in his bedroom and stared at the vent. Which unit was she in? Brett’s apartment was a corner unit right above the parking garage. He was only connected to two apartments, one above him, and one on the other side of the north wall. In the past he had heard the foot stamping from children above him, and laughter from his neighbors to the north, but those sounds were louder, and therefore probably closer than what he just heard through the vents. If this were the neighbors, he would be able to hear them through the walls. Brett figured he would need blueprints to figure out from what units sound would travel to his vent. </p>
<p>Brett got down on his knees and lowered his ear to the vent again. The woman was still making noises. </p>
<p>He couldn’t call the cops, as there was no way they would knock on every unit in building A on the basis of Brett’s flimsy claim. At times he had seen cops in his building, though in every instance they were in the manager’s office, probably because of property damage, or eviction enforcement. It was a ratty building in a dysfunctional neighborhood. </p>
<p>It would be convenient if the bystander effect kicked in right about now, Brett thought as he quickly threw on his jeans, a tee shirt and sneakers. But the Good Samaritan thing was DNA-level for him. His mother and father, both dead, were a nurse and a cop respectively. Then again, he wasn’t sure whether the term “Good Samaritan” applied to the kind of military work he did. To members of disaster-relief forces, sure. But when Brett and his colleagues showed up somewhere in the world, they generally weren’t sent there to help the people with whom they made contact. </p>
<p>In building A (the apartment complex had two), There were 4 floors, with maybe 8 units on each floor. So there were around 32 units. He could walk past those doors fairly quickly and listen for a fight; there were no cameras in the hallway (that he could spot), so he was unlikely to look creepy later via any security footage. As far as witnesses were concerned, Brett would walk at a brisk pace through the halls, moving as if he had a destination, and avoid looking at any of the doors. Moving slowly and looking around drew public attention, especially if you were a stranger. Brett would be categorized as such by any onlookers in the building, as none of them knew him except the apartment manager, and the dealers who loitered in front of the building every day, who would logically recognize every resident who entered and exited. </p>
<p>Brett grabbed his keys and stepped out into the hallway. It was about to be daybreak, so if the situation were a hookup gone wrong, or a domestic violence incident, he or she might be leaving the unit soon (the abused woman subject to a kind of post-trauma eviction, or if a couple, someone off to work). Abuse of that nature tended to happen at night in Brett’s mind, though the behavioral-science component of his training wasn’t post-graduate extensive. This bit of understanding came more from his formative years. </p>
<p>In less than two minutes, Brett had briskly walked all four floors of his building while hooded, wearing ear buds with no sound in them, and pretending to read his phone screen. He heard nothing coming from any of the units and saw no one in the halls. He checked the back entrance of the building and saw no one outside. But about 20 meters down the sidewalk from the front entrance, the dark blue sky had lightened just enough for Brett to spot a woman in shorts, a tank top and flip-flops, walking slowly in the direction away from the building. Whether it was because she was the only pedestrian on the block at 5 AM, or because of what she was wearing, or something in her gait and body language, Brett couldn’t pinpoint. But he knew it was her. The odds were exceptionally slim that he would identify her, and prior to Brett’s current career he wouldn’t have bothered trying. But these days operating on slim odds – with much higher stakes – was just another day at the office.</p>
<p>Still in hoodie and phone-focused, Brett tracked her from a good distance, best case so that she would remain unaware of him, and at worst, so as not to alarm her. The woman entered a 24-hour convenience store a block and a half away without having looked around once, and though civilians didn’t normally do so, Brett discerned something in her lack of peripheral awareness that betrayed her numbness. </p>
<p>From about a block away, Brett jogged up to the convenience store with the hopes of making contact with the woman before she left. She wasn’t carrying a purse or any sort of bag, and Brett noticed that her shorts had no pockets, so it was probable that she had no money and might be entering the store for a purpose other than making a purchase. </p>
<p>Brett opened the glass door in time to here the end of the storeowner’s statement to the woman, at the counter.</p>
<p>“…today you want job. Yesterday you ask what time we close,” the Indian man snipped with an accusatory tone. “You buy something or you leave.”</p>
<p>“She’s with me,” Brett interjected as he took two hand baskets from the stack by the door, handed one to the woman, and started placing items in his. “What were you asking me earlier?” Brett said to her, without making eye contact.</p>
<p>The woman stood there holding the basket, looking at Brett, and trying to process what was going on. She slowly walked over to Brett’s aisle as he randomly added a Kit Kat and a bag of marshmallows to his basket. </p>
<p>“You know her?” the owner asked Brett.</p>
<p>“She’s my neighbor.” He didn’t stop to look at the owner.</p>
<p>“I never see you in here before.”</p>
<p>Now Brett stopped. “And?”</p>
<p>Brett allowed the storeowner to glare for a couple of seconds, then he resumed filling his basket.</p>
<p>The woman studied Brett’s face and was sure she’d never met him. She spoke to him low enough that the storeowner couldn’t hear her.</p>
<p>“I don’t know you.”</p>
<p>“Correct.”</p>
<p>“So what is this you’re doing?”</p>
<p>“I’m stopping a jerk from harassing a customer.” Brett looked up briefly and noticed the purple bruise under her left eye.</p>
<p>The woman studied Brett some more. Then she looked down at the random contents of his basket.</p>
<p>“You eat marshmallows?”</p>
<p>Brett snickers. “Nah I’m just trying to get him to shut up.”</p>
<p>“Okay so what do you want?”</p>
<p>“You should probably grab something,” Brett advised her, “cuz he’s gonna be eyeballing us until we leave.” </p>
<p>The woman paused for a moment, then placed a container of salt, and a bottle of barbecue sauce, into her basket. </p>
<p>Brett glanced down at it. “You might as well look around and get some things you can actually use.”</p>
<p>“That ain’t what you doing.”</p>
<p>Brett laughs. “Touché.” </p>
<p>The woman made her way to another aisle. Brett loosely followed, careful to keep his eyes on the products, so as not to make the woman feel as though he was following her. </p>
<p>“My name is Brett by the way.” Still no eye contact.</p>
<p>“Destiny.”</p>
<p>“That’s pretty.”</p>
<p>“It’s a fuckin’ joke is what it is.”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry to hear that.”</p>
<p>“I asked you what you want,” Destiny redirected Brett.</p>
<p>Brett nodded at the potato chips. “I want you to be okay.” He placed a bag of Funyuns in his now-half-full basket. “I live in Terrace Apartments.”</p>
<p>Destiny gave the side of Brett’s face a knowing look. She tried to reset. “I don’t live there.”</p>
<p>“I figured.”</p>
<p>“So you saying you want something?”</p>
<p>The emphasis that Destiny placed on “you” told Brett what he needed to know. She was a professional.</p>
<p>“I want you to be okay Destiny. That’s what I want. There ain’t no something for nothing in these streets. I understand that. But this ain’t for nothing. Let’s just say I’m easing my conscience.”</p>
<p>“Your conscience. So you know something about that?”</p>
<p>“Thankfully nah. I got plenty of other items on my dirt list, but that ain’t one of ‘em.” Brett subtly nods toward Destiny’s eye bruise.</p>
<p>“You religious? This some kind of church thing you doing?”</p>
<p>Brett shook his head as he walked and scanned the aisle. “God wouldn’t have me.” Brett set down his basket on the floor, removed a business card from his wallet, wrote “#101” on the back of it, and placed it in Destiny’s basket. “If you got a problem at Terrace and you need it handled, let me know.”</p>
<p>Destiny read the card. She flipped it over and looked at Brett’s apartment number.</p>
<p>“In case you can’t call,” Brett clarified. “Knock anytime.”</p>
<p>Minutes later, Destiny and Brett stood in the dawn-lit parking lot of the convenience store, he holding one plastic bag, Destiny holding two.</p>
<p>“How’d you even know I was over there?” Destiny asked. “I ain’t never seen you before.”</p>
<p>Brett quickly debated as to whether he should share how he found out. In the interest of easing Destiny’s concerns about his weirdness, he decided to tell her.</p>
<p>“I heard you through the vents.”A car turned into the parking lot with an Uber sticker on the windshield.</p>
<p>Destiny gave him a look. “Through the vents?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Brett studied her face to figure out what her facial expression meant, as he opened the back door of the vehicle and Destiny took a seat inside. </p>
<p>Brett spoke to the driver. “Take her wherever she needs to go.”</p>
<p>“Actually,” the driver said, “I’m not supposed to do that. The customer needs to be riding.”</p>
<p>Brett offered the driver a $100 bill. “Understood. Policy is policy.”</p>
<p>The driver accepted the bill and started tapping his navigational screen.</p>
<p>Destiny was looking at the business card that Brett gave her. “101 is in building A right?”</p>
<p>“Correct.”</p>
<p>“I was in building B.”</p>
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